About this site: Customer Integration - re-defining the value chain

What is the difference between Customer Integration and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)? Where CRM collects the maximum of descriptive information ABOUT the customer, Customer Integration deals with the individual customer perspective on the business relationship. Customer Integration can be a source of customer commitment, with huge cost reduction potential. As easy as it is to name Customer Integration as a target, as difficult it is to put into practice.

"It goes without saying that customers are more likely to patronize a trusted company that has a positive reputation and comes highly recommended as opposed to a brand with a mediocre reputation. In fact, a large portion of consumers will spend a bit more money on a product from a company they know to stand by its word as opposed to saving money by dealing with a company they cannot stand. That is customer experience management in action.

With a well-executed customer experience management program in their arsenal, companies can rest assured that they will be able to retain a core group of dedicated customers willing to advocate for their brand. Those that create a solid customer experience management program are more apt to experience increased customer acquisition via word of mouth advertising in addition to referrals via online review sites."

"Suppliers understand the term value proposition in three different ways which are all benefits, favorable points of difference and resonating focus. The first value proposition is made up of all the benefits that customers get from a market offering. The all benefits proposition answers the customer question of why they should buy the supplier's offering. It requires that the supplier has knowledge of their own market offering.

This proposition has the disadvantage of the possibility of leading to benefit assertion by the supplier. Benefit assertion occurs when the supplier stresses an advantage which the customer does not view to be important. Another disadvantage is that many of the things which the supplier views as benefits to the customer may be points of parity with the next best alternative. This could dilute the effect of the few real points of difference (Anderson, Narus, & van Rossum, 2006).S

"In his book Enchantment, Guy Kawasaki devotes many pages to the concept of achieving likeability. “For people to like you they have to accept you, and you have to accept them,” he says. You should use the right words to communicate your attitudes, personality, and perspective. Don’t impose your values. He says that finding a shared passion is a great tool for developing relationships.I believe that rather than focusing on telling clients/customers why your company is so great—on your website, in your marketing collateral, or in your social media postings—let them tell you their stories. Spend time listening to them. This will allow you to connect with your clients through your shared passions and their experiences and help you build lasting relationships with them."

"There is a good amount of traction on Social Analytics from Marketing departments. CMO Teams are experimenting their discretionary spending in listening platforms, sentiment analysis, campaign impact measurement, amplification rates and competitive intelligence metrics.

The mainstream investment is yet to kick-in in Enterprise IT space. In my view, Social Analytics is all about Qualitative intelligence whereas traditional analytics is all about Quantitative intelligence.

Where do you typically need Qualitative intelligence? When I say Qualitative intelligence is all about something that is not measurable, not explicit, lies as tacit knowledge in people's minds, often not expressed in numbers, generally not quantified, subjective. By means of subjective, the intelligence also largely depends on cultural bias as well.

Now, Where do you seek and use such intelligence?. We all know Quantitative intelligence is something that everybody seeks in structured financial investments/reviews or operational improvements. But, Where do we use Qualitative intelligence?"

"Last week, I wrote an article for CRM Buyer that said, essentially, this: you can’t control what your customer does, what he says, where he says it or who he says it to, but you can control the experiences he has with your company. If you do that right, everything else ought to take care of itself.

By “customer experience,” I don’t mean the marketing-generated jargon variant of the term that’s thrown about loosely as a way to sell technology. I mean customer experience, with no quotation marks – the common-sense definition that explains it as the cumulative experience that a customer has while in contact with your company, your services and your products.

You can’t control every aspect of the customer’s experience, because he or she brings something of himself into the interaction. If the customer’s dog died that morning, nothing you do might give him a highly positive experience. But you certainly could make his day worse by delivering a shoddy service or a shabby product – or just treating him without compassion and care.

This experience is especially important in industries that are not ones that provide an irreplaceable human need – for example, the hospitality industry. If you create a bad experience customers will go out of their way to never again patronize you – and they’ll tell others about their bad experiences, too."

"It can be difficult to maintain a strong presence at retail with an inconsistent message and creative execution. Compound this across multiple retail outlets and the problem quickly becomes a high priority call-to-action for manufacturers seeking to identify areas in need of increased effectiveness and consistent brand delivery.

In a recent engagement, we were asked to help with such a problem and research ways to improve the overall customer experience around a product within Big Box home improvement stores. This is an ominous task, but one that creative agencies are likely to hear often. In many cases, there are far more questions at this stage than answers. In this particular case, our team dealt with these questions by diving head first into store research and evaluation with a clear mind and our only expectation was to seek understanding along the way. A few things were instantly clear …

Observation & Participation. It was important for us to observe customers and the environment in a natural way. To that end, we spent A LOT of time casually talking with shoppers about their home improvement projects. This helped us gain empathy for the types of decisions they have to make as well as identify factors at play in those decisions. In order to help make our conversations more meaningful, we gave our researchers their own home improvement project scenarios to work through and shop for. Participatory observation ultimately gave us two data sets from which to gleam insights. We were able to listen to stories from real customers and overlay their experiences with our own experiences shopping for the same projects."

"In my mission to achieve the exceptional customer experience, I enlist the help of other customer-focused people who want to do right and deliver great customer service. The most successful customer service individuals are those who have come from the most familiar and “safe” fields, but who invest their hole heart into delivering the exceptional customer experience. Great customer service MEANS something more to them.

I admire people who change career tracks, ignore university studies, and do what they love…what they know they can do well…and what will mean more to them."

"In our first and second posts in this series we discussed how to identify your user’s goals, the structure of your site, how to help guide users through your site and a few tips for a better experience on mobile. In this post we’ll provide our fifth and final user experience tip and lay out some strategies for converting a casual user into a loyal one.

5. Turn casual visitors into loyal users

So far we’ve discussed ways to make sure you understand what your users are looking for and how to present it to them. But you may be wondering how do you keep users coming back again and again? After all, repeat business is the lifeblood of businesses both online and offline. To get users to return, you need to do more than just answer their questions; you need to give them reasons to return to your site."

"The first thing to understand is that Customer Satisfaction does not equal Customer Loyalty. Satisfaction is what people say. Loyalty is what they do. Research usually samples Satisfaction, and people will say "It's fine" even if they never intend to spend money with that company again.

Loyalty is essential for a business to succeed. The purpose of a business is not to make money. Its purpose is to serve its customers. If it does that right it will make money.

Loyalty starts with your employees. All your employees. Every level of every transaction must be conducted with an attitude of appreciation towards the people who spend money with you.

There are six main factors that create customer loyalty:

1. Price. Offer value - lots of value for the price you charge.2. Quality. Whatever you are offering, make it of such good quality that customers will enthuse about it.3. Delivery. Make it easy for customers to order, receive and experience your product or service.4. Service. This is about making every contact a pleasant experience, and going the extra mile whenever possible.5. Recognition. Customers need to be remembered and recognised.6. Feelings. Increasingly, customers are buying on the basis of the experience they have, and how they felt about the experience."

"Ovum has published a groundbreaking study of enterprise readiness for mobile customer care, entitled The Future of Customer Service in a Mobile World: Smart, Connected Interactions, co-written by lead analyst Daniel Hong, principal analyst Keith Dawson, and ServeLab’s Mike Bergelson and Colin Schiller.

“The rise of smart devices and the incessant focus on customer loyalty has created the proverbial ‘perfect storm’ for enterprises that want to reinvent the customer experience around smartphones and tablets,” says Daniel Hong.

“We expect a dramatic shift in customer engagement as more consumers use mobile apps as their primary gateway to customer service. When you take into account the multiple pathways supported via the smart device and combine those with context relay then you have a game changer in the industry. This is what we call smart, connected interactions (SCI).”

Although mobile is clearly a hot initiative in many organizations today, Ovum’s research reveals that the biggest challenge to the rapid implementation of SCI is for customer care teams to collaborate effectively with other areas of the business, especially those that own the mobile strategy."

"High-performance marketers recognize that optimizing revenue is a journey and not a destination. After all, customer behavior evolves based on need, the right time to buy, and through the appropriate channel. Customer life cycle marketing is dynamic in nature, but the rewards are great because it is one of the more effective strategies for acquiring and retaining customers. Evolving your customer life cycle marketing to drive revenue performance not only generates higher profits but also creates a more satisfying experience for customers. Such marketing can be achieved by following eight proven best practices."

"Today’s business buyers are awash in a deluge of online information. Virtually every business problem, process, product, and service, no matter how obscure, seems to have garnered at least one blog post or forum comment. One could debate the quality of this information, but not the quantity. Most business searches turn up thousands if not millions of results that include product descriptions, news articles, videos, podcasts, images, books, white papers, free trials, presentations, Wikipedia entries, rankings, blog posts, comments, tweets and so forth. Whatever your question, chances are someone online already has an answer."

"The 'Virtual Teleportation hardware allows, what is probably, the most advanced way to communicate over distance. The remote service agent appears three dimensionally in the room, life-sized, with aligned eye-contact. The latter is key in B2C interaction. No visible screen nor camera. The agent seems to be standing physically behind the counter. In fact, many users do not realize that the agent is in a remote location. This is as good as being there and is not comparable to video conferencing or telepresence. This is a human-centric solution, as opposed to a technology-centric system.

The AVICCS Software features include : high quality video communication, intelligent routing, media player, digital content, data collaboration, integration with auxiliary equipment, recording, remote troubleshooting, flexible reporting, etc. The 'cloud' server manages the whole process. The system administrator has access from anywhere in the world; using the browser. The peer-to-peer Internet communication between the agent and customer is secured. AVICCS can be connected to legacy audio call center systems and can seamlessly be integrated with auxiliary equipment.

The B2C customers have the choice between viewing pre-recorded answers to F.A.Q. appearing in a three dimensional setting and/or establishing instant, very high quality 3D video communication with a live agent. These agents can be in one single location or they can all be in different places, anywhere in the world. The number of agents and customer service points is virtually unlimited and is easily scalable."

"Heard of project management? Well, this is not an alien term especially if you are related to the industry. But what about customer centric project management? This is something important for efficient project management. The process includes engaging stakeholders; adept stakeholder management to be precise.

Consumer Experience Based Project Management

A positive consumer experience based project management methodology can add value to any business by enabling it to individualize itself from competition who do not present the alike experience.

Who is a stakeholder?

This is the most important individual associated with the project. This person pays for the project. Towards the end, what matters the most is that a customer centric project management cam make a tremendous effect in any business."

"At Service Management Expo (SMe) this year, keynote speaker Bill Pollock, Chief Research Officer at The Service Council, focused on how service organisations can differentiate through smarter service.

Whilst technology was acknowledged for providing the tool set with which to deploy smarter service, Pollock was keen to point out that unless there is intelligent thinking behind the technology, it could merely be helping to make the same mistakes faster.

At the heart of Pollock’s message was the need to move beyond the client / provider relationship to build embedded relationships that reflect the true business partnership. This evolution, resulting in complete emersion in the customer’s business, ensures vendors understand what happens when a system or device fails, what the pain points are and what their customers’ expectations are.

By vendors working closely with organisations to obtain additional intelligence, with which to improve their offering, they are able to offer a superior level of service that sets them aside from the competition, increases customer satisfaction and loyalty.

It might all sound like common sense but in the words of Pollock it’s time to “get back to basics”. Listen to the rest of his interview from SMe here or contact us to discuss brighter thinking, better service."

"Hans Olav Bakaas, Director Business Development at If Norway added, “As a company If has adopted a policy to be available to customers wherever they are. Continued focus on Facebook as a full customer service channel is therefore a natural extension of our customer offerings”

Connect is an Intelecom’s host contact centre application developed specifically to meet customer requirements and can be integrated to work within any software or hardware environment. Connect is currently used by over 350 companies in Europe and the UK.

Torkel Engeness, CEO of Intelecom Group AS continued, “The increased use of social media is evidence that customers are keen to access information via customer forums and online recommendations in addition to traditional communication with organisations via a website, call centre or face to face. The integration of Facebook into our core Connect platform is part of the evolution of our market-leading customer solutions. We are delighted to work closely with such a talented and progressive partner to develop new a customer channel and further enable customers to choose their preferred method of communication, whether by voice, web chat, email, SMS, fax or social media.”

integration of social media is becoming an extremely huge thing in the business sector. this articles explains just really how well it could be used, those who use it right could develop their business so much more, and as mentioned that facebook could become a new customer service channel. businesses should also be open to such things and give clients options of how to communicate..

The article shows that using Facebook or social media helps businesses or organization to connect and integrate ideas better with consumers. Communication is key in succeeding with consumers. But communicating with consumers is now not just with phones, or face to face, but using websites, and social media platforms to connect and let consumers know about information to do with the business. The article uses an excellent british company and how it has helped them using Facebook.

"Simply put – yes, you do. If you are in business, in government or a non-profit or charitable organization, your online reputation is subject to change at any time. The harsh truth is that countless complaint forums and sites exist for the express purpose of airing primarily negative comments about entities and individuals. Often these portals are used by unscrupulous individuals, sometimes even by former employees or colleagues, sometimes competitors or others who are just seeking to cause trouble. The sites also provide a valuable resource for people to check out products and services before making a commitment. Reputation Managementis a broad area and so this article will only focus on the basics.The advent of the internet and its rapid progression as the mammoth, interactive Yellow Pages of our time have made it necessary to monitor what people are saying about you, your business or your brand online. The time frame for responses to complaints and accusations has been significantly shortened. Third party review sites have been created for the sole purpose of forming a community of people that express the positive and (mostly) negative experiences they have had with a company so that others can make informed purchasing decisions."

"If you follow customer service news or read blogs and print publications dedicated to customer relationship management, you may have noticed a new trend. Corporate America cares about the customer! That’s right! Not only are companies investing in new service and support channels and customer service skills trainingfor employees, they are also hiring new upper management: Chief Customer Officers (CCO).Successful companies know that they must allocate funds for the development of new products and services, and employee skills development training. Successful companies also know the importance of investing time and money into creating positive customer experiences. Forrester Research has been tracking the rise of the CCO and has noted a significant increase in the number of companies with a single executive championing customer experience efforts."

"For insurance professionals looking to gain a competitive edge and stand out via social media, touting their products on Twitter isn’t enough.

“In our mind, the next battlefield will be around customer experience,” said Sylvie Paquette, president and COO of Desjardins General Insurance Group during a panel at the recent National Insurance Conference of Canada in Quebec City.

“We’re an industry quite good at managing risk and putting risk in the centre of our discussion,” she said. “We’re not quite (as) good at putting the customer into the centre of our decision.”

When it comes to social media, though, the industry doesn’t really have a choice. The good, the bad and the ugly will be posted to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, so customer engagement through those channels is now critical for success.

Price drives only about 40% of customer loyalty, Paquette said. If a low price were enough to keep customers, “that would be too easy,” she said, which is why differentiating through customer engagement remains important, even in a social media age."

"While Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, The Thank You Economy, demonstrates the power of today’s social media movement and the culture—the expectation—of communication, transparency and connection that social media revived, it also reminds us of some basic client service principles:

Care—about your customers…about your brand—with everything you’ve got

Instill a culture of caring into your business by setting the tone through your words and actions

Be authentic—whether online or offline, say what you mean, and mean what you say

Vaynerchuk mentions how people in their 80’s or older reminisce about a time when retailers and local businesses made it a point to know your name and make you feel like family. I recently had two personal experiences—one with a local business and another with an online retailer—that compelled me to write this article about how making a simple emotional connection with your clients is still the ultimate “social” experience that makes you feel like family—what good social media marketers aim to achieve using today’s social tools—and can certainly build client loyalty for your company or your brand. Note: The third story is not based on my personal experience, but on something I read recently that I thought fit well into my set of “Thank You” themed stories."

"Last year, we notified you about the Company Portal Manual (Manual) issued by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The Manual gave instructions on the use of the special access portal, known as the Company Portal (Portal). The Portal allows financial institutions to view and respond to complaints in the CFPB consumer complaint database. At that time, the Portal was enabled to take consumer complaints about credit cards and provider resources for distressed homeowners.

Since the inception of the Portal, we have responded to numerous requests from clients to help them navigate its rather labyrinthine pathways. Thus, we have obtained considerable experience in guiding our clients from point of contact with the CFPB to point of resolution. In most instances, resolution of the complaint was achieved. While the CFPB continues to acquire statistics about the nature of the complaints, we also have become familiar with how best to respond to the complaints and have kept our own database.

When I cite statistics in this article, the time frame that I am writing about is July 21, 2011 to June 1, 2012. More recent statistics have not yet been officially announced by the CFPB. However, it is known that this database is updated on a daily basis. Retroactive data is expected shortly."

"A lot of clients I talk to want to know the best way to deploy analytics across their enterprise. Most companies use analytics at the departmental level for use in cases such as to improve ROI for marketing campaigns, reduce downtime by predicting failures, and increase inventory turns through optimized assortment planning. Few use analytics pervasively across the enterprise, which is where I'm convinced we're all headed.

First, let's discuss why deploying analytics pervasively matters. Most of us use different channels as we go through the purchase and ownership cycle. We may do research by talking to our friends on Facebook, walking into a store to touch and feel the product, comparing prices on-line, and then wind up buying the product by talking to a sales rep over the phone. Having a positive and consistent experience across all touch points is likely to strengthen preference."

"The rise of tablet computers and smartphones means customers are now more connected than ever. A recent survey by e-commerce experts ZMags revealed more than 60 per cent of 25 to 34-year-olds now own a smartphone and that 90 per cent of people will use a tablet in the next few years.

Consumers want to communicate with brands in more ways than ever from social media and mobile apps to the physical experience in-store. Retailers are quickly learning that merely selling their products and services is no longer sufficient; they need to make their services available across a number of platforms to keep up with our changing lifestyles.

Marks & Spencer is among those brands which have identified the need to introduce a digital focus to their customer engagement strategy. Last month, the retail chain announced it will launch free Wi-Fi in its stores and equip staff with iPads in an attempt to improve customers’ shopping experience to boost sales.

Among its plans is the introduction of QR codes to its flagship store in Cheshire Oaks, which will allow customers to access product information using a mobile device. Staff will also be able to ‘enhance the customer experience’ with a wealth of information at their fingertips thanks to iPads."

"SDL(LSE:SDL) the leader in Global Information Management, has today released a report commissioned with Forrester Consulting that explores the six disciplines that companies should follow to overcome the challenges faced when managing customer experience on a global scale. As technology enables more companies to sell to more markets more quickly, the individual customer experience becomes harder to manage. Getting the customer experience right, when product differentiation is not always clear, will be the next big challenge for global organisations.The digital revolution, driven by the internet has permanently altered the global economy. Customers are better connected, more informed and have higher expectations from the companies they choose to buy from. In order to remain competitive in the global landscape, big businesses are beginning to understand the requirement to fulfil consumer expectations at an individual level in each of the countries in which they operate, with emerging markets now contributing about 50% of global GDP growth."

"As customers evolve and change the way that they find and consume information, marketers must innovate their approach to meet customers where they’re looking, especially in the social media world.Business to Business marketing can involve many decision makers and sales cycles that take weeks or months. Navigating the mix of social content types for different customer segments over time can be a challenge. Luckily, we’ve picked the brains of some of the digital marketing’s world’s brightest to share their practical and innovative B2B marketing tips.

To that end, we visited with Amber Naslund, who is a business strategist with a strong focus on social media communication and community initiatives in the B2B Marketing arena. Amber is the co-author of The NOW Revolution, and her blog Brass Tack Thinking has been recognized for excellence in social media and community related content."

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.